Hello again and welcome back to geek time. Hi Brad.

Hi Lulu.

So you know I'm really into supernatural and weird and horror genre. I know that in geekdom, in the geek world, or let’s say in Si-fi world, there is also a lot of horror suspense. What would you say is in your idea, the quintessential， let's say the scariest monster or supernatural being?

It would have to be Cthulhu.

I have heard of Cthulhu so many times, but I don't think I can really pinpoint what that actually is. Is that one monster is that one story, a book?

It started out as a book by a guy named H. P Lovecraft in the early 1900, there were a bunch of short stories basically. And so they started out with short stories about different monsters. And Cthulhu was probably just the most popularized one of all those monsters.

Okay. It’s something created by a writer, very famous one, called H. P Lovecraft. That was in the early 20th century.

Right.

Was it very popular when it came out？

Definitely, it was not popular back then, it much with. . . when it comes to much art, especially when it comes to like higher art forms like that, they don't become popular until much, much later.

I’ve read some of it, just the language he used was not easy to understand. I would say sometimes it can be quite boring even, and for Lovecraft because of his stories not being very popular, he did not make a lot of money from this, did he？

No. And like they weren't really published that sort of like a normal book. He put them into what we call like Pulp fiction. So they were published like a monthly type’s basis and like a magazine.

But now there's such a huge body of literature of all these Cthulhu stories. Are you saying Lovecraft did not write these stories?

A lot of the stories that people can see that contain Cthulhu nowadays weren't actually written by him, they were written by people who followed him.

So his fans.

Basically yes. Much like modern day fanfiction has written. A lot of the fiction about Cthulhu over the years was by other writers.

And I have noticed that if you search Lovecraft or if you search Cthulhu, you would see that it’s not just horror gerne, it’s also weird fiction. But recent years you do see them popping up the idea of Cthulhu or inspirations from Cthulhu in all sorts of things like fiction, TV, movies, games. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with that. And I did a little bit of reading Lovecraft basically just strikes me a really strange person. It's really odd person. How did he come up with all these weird ideas so early on？

What I’ve read is that a lot of the stories he came up with came from like some of the weird dreams he had. He would dream these things and then he would write about like his dreams.

And people believe that it was just his dreams.

Well, some people might have thought maybe he was. . . he had a vision into another reality or maybe even that he was actually dreaming some actual things. If you look at the story, there are some connections to dreams and reality.

And maybe he was just not from this world.

That's possibility as well.

And back to Cthulhu itself, first of all the word Cthulhu, that’s not an English word, it’s not even a real word, it was created by the writer, by Lovecraft.

Right.

What does that actually mean？

Basically what he said was to meant the slumbering one.

The slumbering one，The one that’s always sleeping.

Correct.

And that's a monster? a god?

He referred to himself maybe as someone from the heavens and back then that kind of meant may be someone that was a god, but it could have also meant that he was an alien. So that kind of picked up that it might be this celestial being from somewhere out in the heavens or maybe godlike or maybe just from an alien planet.

And I know for a fact that Cthulhu is linked closely to the sea, is that where he lives?

From the story that out there, he lives in a . . . it's a underground city called R'lyeh, just kind of similar to Atlantis, it’s a sunken city. Cthulhu and his children are all slumbering trapped in the city waiting to return.

There's a lot of those stories around. If you look at the history of humanity, there are lots of stories about deep sea and monsters sleeping or slumbering waiting there. And I think it's probably stemming from just an inherent fear of the great unknown, I mean ocean is something that we still don't know a lot about. Personally, I mean, do you have a fear of the sea or what they call the thalassophobia？

I definitely afraid of what I can't see under the water, like I grew up in a town with a lake and I went swimming all the time, and when I would get into the water in an area where I couldn't see was underneath me, I would definitely kind of like feel very unnerved. In a place where I can see everything, I can see the bottom, I don't feel bad at all. I don't feel scared. But once you get to that point where you can't see what's below, you're like, what's there？

It's not a fear of water. It's a fear of the great unknown. So how does Cthulhu, the one who is waiting there under the sea, how does he look like?

A lot of the descriptions out there, say it's like basically a man that's hundreds of feet tall, but his face doesn't look anything like a man. The mouth is basically kind of like an octopus. it has tentacles coming out, the eyes are kind of like bright yellow; it has wings. . .

It has wings and tentacles.

Yes, like wings on its back, but tentacles on its face.

Okay, paint quite a picture. I imagine he has a lot of power, and he care to share any of these powers?

Basically like the main power he has is the ability to control people's minds, like he can talk to people in their sleep which is kind of what I mentioned before earlier like he can reach out to people and basically create, like get followers by implanting visions in their dreams of himself.

That is really spooky, so not only is he massive hiding under the sea in the great unknown, he's got all these weird things on his face. And he can also sort of basically sneak into your dreams and then convert you.

Basically. He's often described as like an interdimensional being. So they say that there's this city called R'lyeh under the water, it may not even be a city trapped under the water, but more of like an interdimensional city somewhere that has an opening in the water.

All right. So bring us back to the books, you mentioned earlier there's only really one book or one story about Cthulhu, what is that story about？Is it just introducing the monster？

It's not so much introducing the monster but a lot of the cult that follows the monster, like you hear a little bit about the monster, it starts out with this guy who had an uncle that was writing about Cthulhu, and was writing about basically had like the sculpture the statue of Cthulhu, and was this really weird looking monster, so the main character was kind of like looking into it and then as he is like searching and finding things, he finds all these letters written about the monster. So it's not so much about the monster but like the letters that people have that have written about the monster.

It sounds almost like a text based version of mockumentary, about sort of ancient belief or cult, like you said. 邪教, but cult, the word cult, the original meaning it doesn't mean necessarily evil things, it just means not the main stream god, it’s like an alternative god. With his popularity, with his increasing popularity in pop culture, there’s bound to be a lot of movies, tv shows or games inspired by Cthulhu, right, what are some of the famous ones?

The shape of water, we have stranger things, for example, the TV show that has very similar like monsters.

And then even more so more recently, there was a movie called Underwater, which is actually supposed to have Cthulhu in it.

Underwater. That's a 2020 film.

Yeah.

I really would like to watch that, I haven't. What about games？

As we've mentioned before, we've talked about dungeon and dragons. And aside from dungeon and dragons, there's vampire games, but then the call of Cthulhu is one of the other games that is out there. And so basically, in the role-playing game, you're fighting these monsters or you might be like a follower of these monsters. And so basically you are living in a world where monsters are not hiding any more, or these monsters are out in the world and you are either in war with them or on their side.

Sounds fascinating and also really scary. By the way, do you find them creepy？

I find them slightly creepy, but I’ve grown up with these types of things. So they're not as creepy to me as. . .

When you were little?

Yes, exactly.

All right, I think let's wrap up here. We've basically made the introduction into the whole Cthulhu world or universe. And in the advanced episode, we are going to get into the ins and outs of the whole mythos and then talk about why it is so popular. Alright, we'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye bye.

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